Reinforced wood flooring with a discontinuous glue pattern for truck trailers and containers

ABSTRACT

Reinforced wood flooring for truck trailers and containers and methods for making and using the same. A reinforced wood flooring may include a wood member. The wood member may include a plurality of wood strips that are attached together. The wood member may also have a top surface and a bottom surface. An essentially water impermeable underlay may be attached to the bottom surface of the wood member with a discontinuous layer of adhesive.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION

This application is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No.12/024,882, filed Feb. 1, 2008, now U.S. Pat. No. 7,765,758, the entiredisclosures of which is hereby incorporated by reference.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The present invention pertains to reinforced wood flooring. Moreparticularly, the present invention pertains to reinforced wood flooringfor truck trailers and containers.

BACKGROUND

Conventional truck trailers may utilize a wood flooring, for examplehardwood flooring, because of the desirable characteristics that theflooring may provide the trailer. For example, hardwood flooring mayhave a desirable level of strength and stiffness. This may give theflooring a long life and increase its wear resistance. Of the known woodfloorings, each has certain advantages and disadvantages. There is anongoing need to provide additional floorings and methods for making andusing floorings.

BRIEF SUMMARY

The invention provides design, material, manufacturing method, and usealternatives for reinforced floors for truck trailers and containers. Anexample reinforced wood flooring may include a wood member. The woodmember may include a plurality of wood strips that are attachedtogether. The wood member may also have a top surface and a bottomsurface. An essentially water impermeable underlay may be attached tothe bottom surface of the wood member with a discontinuous layer ofadhesive. The reinforced floor may be used for truck trailers,containers, etc.

An example method of manufacturing a reinforced wood flooring mayinclude providing a wood member. The wood member may include a pluralityof wood strips that are attached together. The wood member may also havea top surface and a bottom surface. The method may also includeattaching an essentially water impermeable underlay to the bottomsurface of the wood member with a discontinuous layer of adhesive. Thereinforced floor may be used for truck trailers, containers, etc.

Another example reinforced wood flooring for truck trailers andcontainers may include a wood member. The wood member may include aplurality of hardwood strips that are attached together. The wood membermay also have a top surface and a bottom surface. An essentially waterimpermeable fiber reinforced plastic member may be attached to thebottom surface of the wood member with a discontinuous layer ofadhesive. The fiber reinforced plastic member may include a plurality ofglass fibers and aramid fibers.

The above summary of some embodiments is not intended to describe eachdisclosed embodiment or every implementation of the present invention.The Figures, and Detailed Description, which follow, more particularlyexemplify these embodiments.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The invention may be more completely understood in consideration of thefollowing detailed description of various embodiments of the inventionin connection with the accompanying drawings, in which:

FIG. 1 is a plan overview illustrating a reinforced floor disposed in atruck trailer;

FIG. 2 is a bottom view of a portion of an example wood member and anunderlay being disposed on the bottom surface of the wood member;

FIG. 3 is a side view of a portion of a wood member illustrating a hookjoint;

FIG. 4 is a perspective view of an example roller;

FIG. 5 illustrates an example layer of adhesive on a wood member;

FIG. 6 illustrates another example layer of adhesive on a wood member;

FIG. 7 illustrates another example layer of adhesive on a wood member;

FIG. 8 illustrates another example layer of adhesive on a wood member;

FIG. 9 illustrates a portion of an example roller for applying a layerof adhesive on a wood member;

FIG. 10 illustrates a portion of another example roller for applying alayer of adhesive on a wood member; and

FIG. 11 illustrates a portion of another example roller for applying alayer of adhesive on a wood member.

While the invention is amenable to various modifications and alternativeforms, specifics thereof have been shown by way of example in thedrawings and will be described in detail. It should be understood,however, that the intention is not to limit the invention to theparticular embodiments described. On the contrary, the intention is tocover all modifications, equivalents, and alternatives falling withinthe spirit and scope of the invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

For the following defined terms, these definitions shall be applied,unless a different definition is given in the claims or elsewhere inthis specification.

All numeric values are herein assumed to be modified by the term“about,” whether or not explicitly indicated. The term “about” generallyrefers to a range of numbers that one of skill in the art would considerequivalent to the recited value (i.e., having the same function orresult). In many instances, the terms “about” may include numbers thatare rounded to the nearest significant figure.

The recitation of numerical ranges by endpoints includes all numberswithin that range (e.g. 1 to 5 includes 1, 1.5, 2, 2.75, 3, 3.80, 4, and5).

As used in this specification and the appended claims, the singularforms “a”, “an”, and “the” include plural referents unless the contentclearly dictates otherwise. As used in this specification and theappended claims, the term “or” is generally employed in its senseincluding “and/or” unless the content clearly dictates otherwise.

The following detailed description should be read with reference to thedrawings in which similar elements in different drawings are numberedthe same. The drawings, which are not necessarily to scale, depictillustrative embodiments and are not intended to limit the scope of theinvention.

FIG. 1 is a plan view of an example reinforced wood flooring 10. In thisexample, flooring 10 is disposed in a truck trailer 12. Althoughflooring 10 is illustrated within trailer 12, this is not intended tolimit the invention as flooring 10 may be used, for example, with anumber of different structures including containers (e.g., shippingand/or freight containers), railroad box cars, and the like, or anyother suitable structure. Trailer 12 may be structurally similar totypical truck trailers known in the art. For example, trailer 12 mayhave a pair of opposing side walls 14 and end doors 16 that can open andclose to provide access to the interior of trailer 12. In at least someembodiments, flooring 10 may extend across the width and along thelength of the interior of trailer 12. Trailer 12 may have a plurality ofsupport members 18 (e.g., “I” beams, “C” beams, hat sections, etc.) thateach may have an upper flange or surface that crosses the width oftrailer 12 and are spaced along the length of trailer 12. In someembodiments, flooring 10 may be secured to support member 18 by screws(not shown) or any other suitable fastener, which may penetrate throughthe whole thickness of flooring 10 and the upper flange of supportmembers 18.

As indicated above, flooring 10 may be a reinforced wood flooring. Byvirtue of being reinforced, flooring 10 may be designed to have adesirable level of strength, stiffness, and the like. This may bedesirable for a number of reasons. For example, increased strength mayallow flooring 10 to be more resistant to damage and/or wear, carrygreater loads (e.g., increase payload), have a greater life, etc.Furthermore, by virtue of using a reinforcing structure (e.g., the“reinforcing underlay” such as underlay 24 described below) in flooring10, other components of flooring 10 (e.g., the “wood member” such aswood member 22 described below) may be manufactured to be thinner, whichmay decrease the weight of flooring 10 and improve the fuel economy intrailers using flooring 10. Some additional detail regarding these andother features can be found below.

As suggested above, in at least some embodiments, flooring 10 mayinclude one or more floorboards or wood members 22 and a reinforcingmember or underlay 24 disposed along a bottom surface 26 of each woodmember 22 as shown in FIGS. 1 and 2. It should be noted that flooring 10is illustrated “upside-down” from its use configuration in FIG. 2 sothat some of the features of flooring 10 can be more easily visualized.Accordingly, it can be appreciated that underlay 24 may be orienteddownward when flooring 10 is installed in trailer 12.

Wood member 22 may take the form of a floor board of flooring componentthat is made from a suitable hardwood such as oak, maple, ash, birch,beech, aspen, elm, poplar, and the like, or any other suitable hardwood.Hardwoods may be desirable, for example, due to their high strength,stiffness, and excellent durability. Alternatively, some softer woodsmay also be used, where appropriate.

Wood member 22 may include a plurality of wood strips 28 that arefastened together. For example, wood strips 28 are arranged in aside-to-side and end-to-end manner in order to form wood member 22. Tomanufacture the individual strips 28, green (i.e., not dried) wood logsmay be cut into lumber using conventional techniques. The lumber may bekiln-dried so that it has an equivalent moisture content of about 6 to10%. Alternatively, the lumber may be seasoned or otherwise allowed todry to the desired moisture content. The dried lumber may be sanded andplaned into the desired thickness. For example, the lumber may be sandedand planed so that it has a thickness of about 0.75 to 1.5 inches, orabout 1 to 1.25 inches thick. The lumber may also be cut into thedesired width, for example, using a ripsaw. For example, the lumber maybe cut to have a width of about 0.75 to 2 inches, or about 1 to 1.4375(i.e., 1- 7/16) inches wide.

During the manufacturing of strips 28, any wood defects such as knots,cracks and fractures, bark pockets, cavities and holes by insects, decayby fungi, and stains by molds may be removed by cutting off the defectswith, for example, a chop saw or suitable automatic cutting system. Itcan be appreciated that such cutting may alter the length of strips 28.It may be desirable for minimum length of wood strips 28 to be about 12inches in wood member 22. Overall, the average length of wood strips 28may be between about three and three and one-half feet.

Both of the opposing ends of each wood strip 28 may be cut into a squareshape with, for example, a tennoner saw. The squared ends of wood strips28 may also be further cut so that “hooks” are formed therein. Thesehooks allow wood strips 28 to be attached end-to-end by mating adjacenthooks and forming a “hook joint” 30 as illustrated in FIG. 3. The depthor size of hook joint 30 may vary depending on the application. Forexample, the depth of hook joints 30 may be about 0.25 to 0.75 inches,or about 0.25 to 0.5 inches, or about 0.375 inches. Alternatively, anyother suitable type of joint may be utilized to join together woodstrips 28.

The suitably prepared wood strips 28 may also be fastened togetherside-to-side using any suitable attachment technique. For example, thevertical sides or edges of each wood strip 28 may be coated with anadhesive by a roller glue spreader. This may help to secure wood strips28 across the width of wood member 22. A suitable adhesive for thissecuring may include urea-melamine formaldehyde, crosslinking polyvinylacetate, isocyanate, and the like. The glue-coated wood strips 28 may beassembled (e.g., both side-to-side and end-to-end) on a conveyor. Thismay include manual assembly. The hook joints 30 may fasten together theadjacent ends of strips 28 to form a continuous slab, in which they arejointed end-to-end in a number of rows (as illustrated in FIG. 1). Itmay be desirable to control the number of hook joints 30 per squarefoot. For example, it may be desirable to have about 5 to 7 hook joints30 per square foot on average. The joined collection of wood strips 28may be placed into a steam or radio frequency hot press under verticaland cross-direction pressures for curing of the adhesive.

Once strips 28 are secured together in the desired fashion, theresultant board may be cut to the desired length. For example, the boardmay be cut to a length of about 56 feet (or more or less depending onthe application). Additionally, the board may also be divided into anumber of floorboards or wood members 22 that each have a width, forexample, of about 10 to 14 inches or about 12 inches to 12.25 inches.These wood members 22 may be planed (and/or sanded) to a desiredthickness. For example, wood member 22 may be planed to a thickness ofabout 1 to 1.5 inches, or about 1.125 inches, or about 1.3125 inches, orabout 1.375 inches, etc.

Trailers like trailer 12 may include a plurality of wood members 22joined together to form flooring 10. For example, trailer 12 may includeabout 6 to 10 wood members 22, or about 8 wood members 22, or more orless depending on the application. To facilitate the joining of woodmembers 22, shiplaps 32 and crusher beads 34, which may be similar tothose known in the art, may be machined on to both edges of each woodmember 22. Shiplaps 32 may be convenient for installing floorboards ontruck trailers by allowing adjacent wood member 22 to overlap. Crusherbeads 34 may provide spaces between adjacent wood members 22, which mayprotect members 22 from buckling due to their expansion in wetconditions.

In some embodiments, bottom surface 26 of wood members 22 may be coatedwith a water resistant polymeric layer (e.g., latex). However, this maynot be necessary when underlay 24 is utilized. Wood members 22 may besealed at both ends with a water resistant adhesives. To avoid the wateror moisture penetration from both ends of reinforced wood flooring 10, awater resistant adhesive resin such as epoxy and crosslinking polyvinylacetate may also be used at the ends of wood members 22. The top surfaceof wood members 22 may be optionally coated with a suitable epoxy,lacquer, or varnish to improve the durability and water resistance ofwood members 22 during installation and maintenance.

As indicated above, wood members 22 may include underlay 24 along bottomsurface 26. Underlay 24 may be an essentially water impermeable underlay24. More particularly, underlay 24 may essentially prevent water(including liquid water and/or water vapor) from passing therethrough.Accordingly, using a water impermeable underlay 24 may be desirablebecause it may form a water barrier at the bottom of flooring 10, whereflooring 10 would otherwise be exposed to the outside environment.

In addition, underlay 24 may include a structure that may add desiredstrength to wood member 22. This may be desirable for a number ofreasons. For example, adding strength may improve wear resistance,extend life, increase the payload of a trailer (e.g., trailer 12), etc.In at least some embodiments, underlay 24 includes a fiber reinforcedplastic (FRP). An FRP, as known for conventional FRPs, may include aplurality of continuous reinforcing fibers that are impregnated with orotherwise include a polymeric resin or matrix. The continuous fibers maybe carbon fibers, glass fibers, aramid fibers (e.g., Kevlar® by DuPont &Co.), and the like, or mixtures and/or combinations thereof The fibersmay make up about 50-90%, or about 60-80%, or about 70% of the weight ofunderlay 24.

In at least some embodiments, an example underlay 24 may include acombination of glass fibers and aramid fibers. These fibers may bedivided so that the ratio of glass fibers to aramid fibers, by weight,may be about 8:1 to 10:1, or about 9:1. For example, an example underlay24 may include about 60-65% (e.g., about 63%) glass fibers and about5-10% (e.g., about 7%) aramid fibers. Of course, other ratios and/orfibers may also be utilized.

The polymeric resin or matrix may include a thermosetting adhesive suchas polyester, vinyl ester, polyurethane, phenol formaldehyde, epoxy,phenolic, or the like. Optionally, the FRP also may include athermoplastic resin such as polyethylene, polypropylene, polyvinylchloride, polyamide (e.g., polyamide 6 and polyamide 6/6), polyethyleneterephthalate, and the like, or any other suitable material. The FRP maybe manufactured according to conventional manufacturing processes suchas pultrusion, as known in the art.

The arrangement of the fibers in underlay 24 may also vary. In someembodiments, all of the fibers in underlay 24 may be oriented in thesame direction. For example, underlay 24 may include fibersthat are alloriented in the longitudinal direction (i.e., along the length oftrailer 12). In some other embodiments, most of the fibers may beoriented in the longitudinal direction. Alternatively, some of thefibers in underlay 24 may be oriented in one direction and some of thefibers may be disposed in a different direction such as, for example,perpendicularly to those fibers. For example, underlay 24 may includeabout 70% or more of the fibers oriented in the longitudinal directionand the balance of them arranged perpendicular to those fibers, or about80% or more of the fibers oriented in the longitudinal direction and thebalance of them arranged perpendicular to those fibers, or about 90% ormore of the fibers oriented in the longitudinal direction and thebalance of them arranged perpendicular to those fibers.

Underlay 24 may also vary in thickness. In some embodiments, underlaymay be about 0.025 to about 0.050 inches thick, or about 0.030 to about0.040 thick, or about 0.033 inches thick. Underlays 24 of thesethicknesses may provide a suitable degree of reinforcement while beingsufficiently thin so as to reduce the overall weight of flooring 10.This may desirably impact the properties of flooring 10 by allowing fortrailers such as trailer 12 to consume less fuel when transporting goods(i.e., less fuel consumption with the same payload) or the ability tocarry more goods (i.e. increased payload). Furthermore, FRP underlays 24may reinforce wood member 22 sufficiently so that wood members 22 may befurther thinned, which also may desirably reduce the weight of flooring10.

Underlay 24 may be attached to wood member 22 using a suitable adhesiveor adhesive layer (such as adhesive layer 48, which is illustrated cutaway in FIG. 2). For example, adhesive layer 48 may include a hot meltreactive polyurethane resin (e.g., PUR polyurethane resin) or any othersuitable adhesive. It should be noted that the following discussiondescribes the use of PUR in flooring 10 but this is not intended tolimit the invention as essentially any other suitable adhesive may beused for adhesive layer 48 without departing from the spirit of theinvention.

The PUR adhesive may be placed on a reservoir adjacent a pair of heatedrollers, including, for example, roller 36. The temperature of rollersmay be controlled to be between 260 and 280° F., which may melt the PURmaterial. Alternatively, molten PUR may be applied directly to roller36. After the PUR resin is completely melted, wood members 22 may passthrough a gap between the rollers and wood members 22 are coated withthe PUR material. Underlay 24 may be quickly laid onto the glueline(i.e., the layer of PUR material disposed on wood members 22) and passthrough a pair of cold rollers (also called pinch rollers) underpressure. The pressure of the pinch rollers may be adjusted to achieve adesirable bonding strength as well as the desired distribution ofadhesive (e.g., avoiding and/or limiting “pinch out” of adhesive). Theresultant reinforced wood flooring 10 is stored at room temperature for24 hours to complete further solidification and/or curing of the PUR.The FRP edges of the cured reinforced wood flooring 10 may be trimmedwith a suitable cutting tool to remove any excess material. This mayform the reinforced wood flooring 10 (and/or one of the floor boardsmaking up flooring 10).

Hot melt reactive polyurethanes like PUR may be desirable for a numberof reasons. For example, hot melt reactive polyurethanes may provideexcellent bonding between wood (e.g., wood members 22) and FRP plies(e.g., underlays 24). However, the holt melt reactive polyurethanes arerelatively expensive. In addition, completely and/or continuouslycoating wood member 22 with the PUR material may add weight to flooring10. Because of these factors, it may be desirable to reduce the amountof PUR utilized in flooring, for example, to reduce manufacturing costsand/or weight of flooring 10.

In at least some embodiments, adhesive layer 48 is a discontinuous layerof adhesive and/or a discontinuous glue pattern may be utilized toreduce the amount of PUR used. For example, adhesive layer 48 mayinclude an adhesive portion or portions 49 and an adhesive lackingportion or portions 50. It should be noted that adhesive lackingportions 50 are illustrated as darkened strips in the figures. This isdone so that these portions 50 can be more easily visualized. For thepurpose of this invention, a discontinuous layer of adhesive and/or adiscontinuous glue pattern (which may also be termed a “glueline” in theart) may be understood to be layer of adhesive or a glue pattern that isdesigned to cover less than all of the surface area of bottom surface 26of wood members 22. For example, discontinuous layer of adhesive 48 maycover less than 100% of the surface area of bottom surface 26 of woodmembers 22, or about 98% or less of the surface area of bottom surface26 of wood members 22, or about 96% or less of the surface area ofbottom surface 26 of wood members 22, or about 95% or less of thesurface area of bottom surface 26 of wood members 22, or about 90% orless of the surface area of bottom surface 26 of wood members 22. Thesediscontinuous layers of adhesive 48 differ from a continuous layer ofadhesive (and/or continuous glueline), which is designed to coveressentially 100% of the surface area of a wood member surface.

Forming discontinuous layer of adhesive 48 may include the use of acoating roller with a varying format to apply the adhesive to woodmember 22. For example, a coating roller 38 for applying discontinuouslayer of adhesive 48 on bottom surface 26 of wood member 22 isillustrated in FIG. 4. Roller 38 may include one or more grooves orrecesses 40, a base or rubber layer 42, a drum 44, and axis shaft 46. Itcan be appreciated that grooves 40 are arranged substantially parallelto one another in roller 38. Other rollers are contemplated wheregrooves 40 may intersect.

Base layer 42 may be the adhesive applying portion of roller 38. Thematerial for base layer 42 may be selected based on a good balance ofelasticity and stiffness. For example, base layer 42 may include anatural or a synthetic rubber such as silicone, neoprene, styrenebutadiene rubber, EPDM rubber, fluoro-silicone, polyisoprene, nitrile,polyurethane, viton, or the like. It may also be convenient to selectthese materials because they may be easy to be cut them into certainshapes by machine in order to form a variety of different coatingpatterns and/or coating designs. Grooves 40 may be formed by cuttingaway or removing a portion of the base layer 42. By doing so, grooves 40are designed so that they essentially will not apply adhesive to woodmember 22. Additionally, a suitable “groove cleaning” structure orassembly (e.g., another roller with projections designed to “mate” withgrooves 40) may be utilized that can clean out or otherwise removeadhesive that may become disposed in grooves 40.

In use, adhesive may be applied to roller 38, for example, by heatingroller 38 and rolling it through the adhesive (e.g., PUR). In doing so,adhesive may be applied to base layer 42 (i.e., the adhesive applyingportion of roller 38) but not grooves 40. Wood member 22 may then be fedthrough roller 38 (e.g., with the rotation of roller 38 being the sameas the feeding direction of wood member 22). When roller 38 contactswood member 22, base layer transfers adhesive to wood member 22 (e.g.,at adhesive portion 49) whereas grooves 40 essentially do not transferadhesive to wood member 22 and, instead, leave or form portions 50,which lack adhesive as shown in FIG. 5. This pattern definesdiscontinuous layer of adhesive 48 along bottom surface 26 of woodmember 22.

It can be appreciated that roller 38, by virtue of having grooves 40arranged parallel to one another, forms adhesive-lacking portions 50that are arranged as two parallel strips extending longitudinally alongwood member 22. This arrangement, however, is not intended to belimiting. Indeed, base layer 42 can be cut into essentially any desiredshape to form a discontinuous layer of adhesive having a differentpattern. FIGS. 6-8 illustrate some of the example patterns that arecontemplated. For example, FIG. 6 illustrates a discontinuous layer ofadhesive 148 where adhesive-lacking portions 150 a/150 b are arranged asstrips with broken or interrupted regions 152 a/152 b that includeadhesive and/or are part of adhesive layer 148. FIG. 7 illustrates adiscontinuous layer of adhesive 248 that includes three paralleladhesive-lacking strips 250 a/250 b/250 c that are broken by regions 252that include adhesive 48 and/or are part of adhesive layer 248. Thelength L may be equal to the perimeter of the coating roller used toform layer 248. Accordingly, the alternating strips 250 a/250 b/250 chave a length that is equal to about half the perimeter of the roller.This may help better distribute the local stress on the discontinuouslayer of adhesive 248 and thus effectively reduce the stressconcentration along the discontinuous layer of adhesive. FIG. 8illustrates a discontinuous layer of adhesive 348 that includes fourparallel adhesive-lacking strips 350 a/350 b/350 c/350 d that are brokenby regions 352 that include adhesive and/or are part of adhesive layer348. The patterns illustrated in FIGS. 6-8 illustrate that essentiallyany suitable number of adhesive-lacking portions may be utilized andthat these portions may or may not be broken or interrupted.

FIGS. 9-11 illustrate portions of example rollers that may be utilizedto form additional discontinuous layers of adhesive. For example, FIG. 9illustrates a portion of roller 438 that includes base 442 and threegrooves 440 a/440 b/440 c that are intersected by three more grooves 440d/440 e/440 f. Similarly, FIG. 10 illustrates a portion of roller 538that includes base 542 and a plurality of intersecting diagonal grooves540 a/540 b/540 c/540 d/540 e/540 f. This may form a discontinuous layerof adhesive that takes the form of a web or web-like configuration. Thepatterns illustrated in FIGS. 9-10 illustrates that intersectingconfigurations having essentially any suitable number of grooves may beutilized for forming discontinuous layers of adhesives.

Finally, FIG. 11 illustrates a portion of an example roller 638 thatincludes base 642 and a plurality of grooves 640 a/640 b/640 c having acomplex geometry intersected by grooves 640 d/640 e/640 f. In theembodiment shown in FIG. 11, grooves 640 a/640 b/640 c/640 d/640 e/640 fare arranged so that base 642 has a shape resembling a pair of hexagonsadjoined hexagons. Designs like the one shown in FIG. 11 may help evenlydistribute the stress of adhesive on reinforced wood flooring 10 andeffectively reduce the amount of adhesive applied to wood members 22.This figure illustrates that the adhesive-lacking strips of adiscontinuous layer of adhesive need not take the form of lines and thatessentially any suitable shape pattern may be utilized without departingfrom the spirit of the invention.

When applying adhesive 48 in any of the patterns disclosed above, it maybe desirable to keep any of the adhesive-lacking strips away from thelateral edge of wood member 22. For example, it may be desirable for anyof the adhesive-lacking portions or strips to be at least one inch awayfrom the edges wood member 22. This may help to reduce and/or avoidcontact of moisture or water with wood member 22.

To avoid the water or moisture penetration from both ends of reinforcedwood flooring 10 into the discontinuous layer of adhesive, certain waterresistant adhesive resins such as epoxy and crosslinking polyvinylacetate may be used. The surface sealing by these adhesives may improveperformance and durability of reinforced wood flooring 10 with adiscontinuous layer of adhesive.

EXAMPLES

The invention may be further clarified by reference to the followingExamples, which serve to exemplify some of the preferred embodiments,and not to limit the invention in any way.

Example 1

A fiberglass reinforced polyurethane ply having a nominal thickness of0.033 inches was used for underlay 24. The resin included about 30% byweight polyurethane. In this example, the FRP underlay 24 includedapproximately 7% by weight of aramid fibers and about 63% by weight ofglass fibers. Use of aramid fiber may significantly improve mechanicalperformance of the FRP underlay 24 and allow it to have a reducedthickness. At least 90% of the reinforcing fibers were arranged so thatthey lined up longitudinally along wood member 22.

A hot melt reactive PUR resin was used for the adhesive 48 for bondingthe FRP underlay 24 to wood member 22. The melting temperature of PUR isabout 260° F.

Laminated wood members 22 were used to manufacture an example reinforcedwood flooring 10. The nominal thickness of wood members 22 was about1.0625 (1- 1/16) inches. The target thickness of reinforced woodflooring 10 was about 1.125 inches.

Wood members 22 were manufactured according to the aforementionedprocedures. An example wood member 22 was coated with hot melt reactivePUR through the roller coater 38. This resulted in a discontinuous layerof adhesive where adhesive 48 was applied to portions of wood member 22and two continuous, parallel adhesive-lacking strips 50 were formed asillustrated in FIG. 5. In this example, the adhesive layer 48 was about0.020 inches in thickness.

An FRP underlay 24 was then disposed on adhesive-coated wood member 22and the structure was passed through a pair of pinch rollers whileapplying pressure. The resultant reinforced wood floorboards 10 werestored at room temperature and at a relative humility of 50% for 72hours prior to mechanical testing.

Example 2

Flexural and dry shear properties of reinforced wood flooring 10 formedin Example 1 were tested in accordance with ASTM standard ASTM D198. Forthe flexural test, a three point bending mode was applied. The flexuralspan was 30 inches. The testing speed was 0.48 inch/min.

In addition, a wet shear test was conducted for reinforced wood flooring10. The wet shear test follows a soaking-drying procedure by anindustrial standard. The flooring 10 samples were submerged 2 inchesdown from the water level and soaked in tap water for 48 hours. Theywere then placed in an oven at 140° F. and dried for 16 hours. Afterthat, they were removed from the oven and soaked again for another 8hours. Finally, flooring 10 samples were removed from water and allowedto dry for 2 hour before shear testing. These procedures were alsoperformed on control flooring samples including a sample laminated woodfloorboard lacking underlay 24 (hereafter Control 1) and a sampleflooring with a continuous layer of adhesive (hereafter Control 2).

The results of the mechanical testing are listed in Table 1.

TABLE 1 Mechanical performance of discontinuous layer of adhesive.Thick- Max. Flexural Flexural Maximum Test ness flexural strengthmodulus shear load (lbs) sample (inch) load (lbs) (psi) (psi) Dry WetControl 1¹ 1⅛ 3,850 11,027 1,600,000 1,850 800 Control 2² 1⅛ 7,10221,220 2,006,272 5,437 3,455 Flooring 1⅛ 6,771 20,229 1,935,184 4,6753,360 10³ ¹Laminated oak floorboards, values of mechanical propertiesare the baseline required by the industry standard. ²Reinforced oakfloorboards with continuous layer of adhesive. ³Reinforced oakfloorboards with a discontinuous layer of adhesive.

As shown in Table 1, the reinforced wood floorboards (e.g., Control 2and flooring 10) are much stronger and stiffer than laminated woodfloorboards (Control 1). At the same nominal thickness, thediscontinuous layer of adhesive in flooring 10 decreases by only about5% and 16% in flexural and dry shear strengths, respectively. However,both have the same performance in wet shear. These results unexpectedlyindicate that a significant savings in material and manufacturing costscan be achieved using a discontinuous layer of adhesive withoutcompromising strength and performance of flooring 10.

It should be understood that this disclosure is, in many respects, onlyillustrative. Changes may be made in details, particularly in matters ofshape, size, and arrangement of steps without exceeding the scope of theinvention. The invention's scope is, of course, defined in the languagein which the appended claims are expressed.

1. A reinforced wood floor for truck trailers and containers,comprising: a floor board having a bottom surface; a layer of materialattached to the bottom surface of the floor board to reinforce the floorboard, the layer of material being attached to the floor board with adiscontinuous layer of adhesive; and wherein the floor board hasopposing end surfaces that are sealed with a water resistant adhesive.